Starting November 28, 2022, we plan to stop offering free product plans and plan to start shutting down free dynos and data services.

so if you're affected by that and need a good place to host small projects, bots, experiments etc, i can recommend a wonderful alternative: deta.sh! basically, if you have a python or node.js app you'd like to host somewhere, they do it for free. no credit card or anything involved, you just get a ready PaaS for completely free. they also have a database and 10GB file storage for $0, forever. and they offer cron jobs. and you can use your own domain, or a random string or a subdomain of your choice on deta.dev. the "attached string" is that they advertise, well, themselves to developers: they have a service called deta space, which is essentially deta, but monetized and scalable. so if you have a side project that you want to expand into a consumer app for a lot of people, you move it over to space and it's a fully managed thing with 0 hassle, and that's their whole business model. its a win/win for you (a developer) and them. space is, much like cohost, in development but deta itself is already stable and a wonderful service.

and no, i am not sponsored/affiliated/whatever, they just provide a genuinely useful service for me: i currently have 15+ databases, two file drives, and over 60 projects on deta, and have been using them for years. and even some of my cohost shitposts would not be possible without them: my like counter and ajax demo are hosted there. and exactly that is their mission:

Deta is a free cloud crafted with the developer and user experience at heart. It is our mission to dramatically reduce the gap between ideas and working cloud applications.

Why is Deta Cloud free for ever? We want anyone, at any age from anywhere in the world to experiment and build their ideas without worrying about limits of credit cards.

and that is fucking awesome. they are genuinely great people. and the coolest thing about them imo: how easy it is to use. i even have a zsh function to scaffold, deploy and open a whole project:

deta_new() {
  cd ~dev; md $1
  npm init -y; npm install express ${@:2}
  echo -e 'const express = require("express")\nconst app = express()\n\napp.get("/", (req, res) => {\n\n})\n\nmodule.exports = app' > index.js
  $EDITOR index.js
  deta new
  open $(deta details | jq -r .endpoint)
}

everything except the last two lines scaffolds a node+express project. the actual deployment is one line and i open the deployed app with the last line. it's just super comfortable to use, and if you need something like this: give it a shot! its literally free, you have nothing to loose :3